Oh, the beasts you feed,
that laugh and **** and steal,
I’ve seen. You wonder why they grow
so tall, so furious, so strong,
so angry, so cut throat, they
that lurk among you,
baring fangs to bite
the hand that gives,
and strokes the necks of callous pigs.

Some men blink,
some men die,
some men lie
awake at night
and scream their heads off,
cry, “why? no! why?”
to echo silence.

But still they scream and scream and scream,
and then their throats turn to rage.
Screams begin to turn pages
read, passed down from father to son,
from father to son, from father to son,
farther from the sun
at last.

And every night grown hopeless men
read chapters in dim
light, bleeding out below full moon sky

Dead men sour the shores as waves
play at their feet. Bored, the water
will tug the stiffs into frothy sea,
spewing brine into foul air.
Ideas that once were
now lie at the mercy of burdening waves,
are carried down, deep into current,
to feed the mouths of bottom feeders
without pride nor dignity.

They will choke to death on crowns
of yesterday, rotten meat of men
still digging at the bottom of the sea.

It’s been almost twenty years,
not a single word. Thoughts?
I guess you can’t miss
the things you’ve never known.

Hell is full
of demons in the shapes of men,
sons, brothers, husbands, fathers.
Another place lies
not far from there,
where shades take shape
of things you’ll never see.
Ghosts of lives you never got
to live, of things said,
or never said enough.

I’ve not got murderous hands,
nor the simplicity for violence;
it’s my thoughts that scare me.